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I'm pretty sure this is part of the plot in Children of Ruin by Tchaikovsky. It's a good book.

Children of Time would be a closer match in terms of the ingestible knowledge transfer. Also, siderant: the rest of the series is not as great. I'd recommend new readers to try the first book (Time), and then maybe skim through the second (Ruin), and ignore the third (Memory).

Having just wrapped up Memory I found Time to be great. I thought Ruin was a slog, although I did love it at first. It was just a bad copy of the first. And while I thought the ending was telegraphed too much, I did enjoy how Memory was very different.

Came across a thread on Reddit recently about these three and many people made the point that Ruin & Memory are so different from each other in terms of sequels that which is the "good one" is a polarizing discussion.

As a balance to your opinion, I thoroughly enjoyed all three. Sure the first hit’s different, but they all deserve the attention.

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